Five years ago, solar power prices slid. Then they edged down and slipped a bit more. Like ice skidding off a rooftop, those once pricey solar panels have moved into a new arena of things that regular people could conceivably afford.

Texas leads the nation in installed wind capacity. But will the state build on that lead? Energy experts say that depends on whether coal power is retired or continued as a major source of power on the grid. ERCOT’s Warren Lasher explains different scenarios that could evolve over the next 15 years.

Texas did not make the list of top states for clean tech — wind, solar, geothermal power plus electrical vehicles — but ever greener Austin did win a place among the top 10 clean tech cities, according to this analysis.

Dozens of national and regional groups have been fighting the Keystone XL pipeline, saying it could contaminate groundwater and will ratchet up carbon emissions, hastening climate change. But the general public may not feel the same. A recent poll showed most still believe the pipeline will create “significant” jobs and help provide oil to the US.

Business investment group CERES sounded the alarm Wednesday, issuing a major report about the billions of gallons of fresh water being lost to natural gas fracking operations across the United States and in Canada. CERES researchers evaluated oil and gas water use in eight regions, concluding that gas companies need to improve their water conservation and investors should take heed of the risks involved with fracking in arid and water-stressed regions.

Congress’ on-and-off romance with wind energy is back off. Tax credits for wind expired – again – with the close of 2013. This isn’t the first time the industry has broken up with its Congress. Every year or every other year for the past decade lawmakers have acted like a reluctant fiancee, extending a hand but always holding back on a full-fledged support for the wind industry.

The Global Frackdown is upon us, with events scheduled in many US states and around the world. Activists will rally and strategize about ways to slow or stop the fracking frenzy they see as polluting land and water.

It’s widely held that China has been beating U.S. solar panel prices by handing out lavish subsidies to producers and keeping labor costs very cheap. But it may not be so. And that could be good news for the U.S. solar market.

The “London Array” off the coast of Great Britain is a massive wind farm, capable of powering 500,000 homes. But will such projects tip the scales enough for the UK to meet its renewable energy targets? The critics are gathering.

One of the talking points that has convinced Americans to look politely away from the muck and dirty water while the oil and gas industry fracks tens of thousands of gas wells in Texas, Pennsylania, New York, Ohio, North Dakota , Wyoming, Colorado and beyond is that the U.S. is “The Saudia Arabia of Natural Gas.”

U.S. shale oil (and gas) production depends upon a frenzied level of drilling never before seen, according to a new paper out from Harvard. That’s because the wells accessed by new fracking techniques typically decline dramatically not long after being put into production.

Keystone XL pipeline protesters locked themselves to earth-moving equipment in Spaulding, OK, today, in one of a series of actions against the intercontinental project that would carry diluted bitumen oil from Canada to Texas refineries and ports. Opponents say the pipeline will unleash massive carbon dioxide pollution, accelerating climate change.

The Keystone pipeline opposition has galvanized, with activists angered not just over the pipeline’s heavy carbon footprint, but the lack of transparency and political influence-peddling around the DC review and permitting for the project. This week, Friends of the Earth filed an FOIA request to bring information to light about what it sees as a corrupted process.

When President Obama nominated MIT’s Ernest Moniz to be energy secretary earlier this month, he hailed the nuclear physicist as a “brilliant scientist.” But beyond his job in academia, Moniz has also spent the last decade serving on a range of boards and advisory councils for energy industry heavyweights like BP and an uranium enrichment company.

The Obama Administration released its revised environmental assessment of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on Friday, portraying the project as a relatively safe way to transport oil from fields in Canada and North Dakota to the US heartland and ports at Houston. The review has riled environmentalists and pleased oil interests.

The U.S. shale boom being touted as able to deliver 100 years of domestic energy supply is nothing more than the latest investment bubble, asserts a report released this week by a veteran geoscientist.

Anti-fracking forces in New York suffered a setback this week when a federal judge threw out their lawsuit asking for a full environmental review of possible damages from natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin, a prelude to a potential ban of drilling in the region.

The activists fear that natural gas “fracking” would jeopardize water supplies for the 15 million, including some residents of New York City, who depend on water originating in the Delaware River Basin. Fracking involves deep wells into shale deposits which are blasted open by injecting a water-chemical mix at high pressures. The fissures in the underground rock then release natural gas deposits.

ITHACA, N.Y. – No matter how you drill it, using natural gas as an energy source is a smart move in the battle against global climate change and a good transition step on the road toward low-carbon energy from wind, solar and nuclear power.